


Smile For Me

by Cornflower_Corvid



Series: Yurileth Week - Non AU fics [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Male My Unit | Byleth, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Prompt: Injury, Trust Issues, Yurileth Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24314200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornflower_Corvid/pseuds/Cornflower_Corvid
Summary: (Set Post Time-skip) Byleth gets injured during a battle because he jumps in the way of an attack that would have hit Yuri. Yuri feels responsible for his injury and comes up from Abyss everyday to take care of him. Byleth senses that he's doing it to repay a debt he thinks he owes, and confronts him about his motivations.
Relationships: Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/My Unit | Byleth
Series: Yurileth Week - Non AU fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817728
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	Smile For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Yurileth Week 2020  
> Day 5 Prompt: Injury  
> This story follows after one of my other Yurileth Week fics, "Bridge of Ivy". If you haven't already, please read that first. There is also a story that comes before that one, called "Stars Be Our Witness".
> 
> This is set post time-skip, about 6 months in, so in or around Garland Moon.
> 
> Please enjoy!

“Byleth… Hey, Byleth…”

Byleth opened his eyes slowly, and for a moment he was mystified as to why he was being woken up, and who would be waking him up, but then he registered whose voice he’d heard, and he very quickly remembered the pain in his shoulder.

“Yuri…” Byleth muttered, rolling over to take the pressure off his shoulder. “I- I told you, you don’t ha-”

Byleth was interrupted by Yuri’s hand on his mouth. “Yeah yeah, I know, you keep saying that, and I keep telling you not to waste your breath, because I’m going to come here anyway.” He gently placed a bare hand on Byleth’s shoulder, the other swiping away his fringe to feel his forehead. “How is it feeling today?”

Byleth winced slightly, the lightest touch still painful on the relatively fresh and tender wound, even bandaged as it was. “Better than yesterday,” he answered simply. Yuri’s hand began to glow slightly, and Byleth let his eyes fall closed as the pain faded away a little. “And even better now. Thank you,” he said, placing a hand over Yuri’s. 

“You don’t need to apologize,” Yuri said, putting his other hand over Byleth’s and squeezing gently. He was smiling, but Byleth sensed that something was off – it was one of those typical Yuri smiles, the not-smiling-with-your-eyes kind. After a moment he pulled away, and Byleth sat up carefully, watching him. “I brought some stuff to work on, don’t worry about me. Are you hungry?”

Shaking his head, Byleth took a look out the window; he’d clearly slept later than he’d meant to. He thought he would be awake before Yuri got up here; he’d been coming up to Byleth’s room every morning to make sure he was recovering from that last battle.

“Yuri,” Byleth started, and Yuri looked over at him, clearly sensing something uncomfortable in his tone. Byleth could see that the mask had shifted firmly back in place. “I think we should talk about this.”

Yuri looked away briefly. He had sat down at Byleth’s desk with the papers he had with him, quill in hand. “Talk about what?” he asked, looking back. 

Byleth sighed, feeling tired suddenly. “I… I don’t want you to feel like you owe me something. I would never not consider getting in the way – you don’t need to spend all of your time up here watching over me because you feel responsible for me getting hurt.” The words stung to say, because he _did_ appreciate what Yuri was doing for him. But he wanted Yuri to want to do it because he wanted to, not out of some sense of honour, because Yuri felt like he owed Byleth for taking that hit for him.

As much as it felt awful to say those words, Yuri’s expression remained unchanged. Byleth knew there was no way there wasn’t something there, stirring just beneath the surface. “I _do_ owe you. If you hadn’t seen that soldier going for me… You took a hit meant for me. It’s only fair that I make sure you recover properly,” he said after a pause, his voice perfectly even. It felt like all the progress Byleth had made with Yuri over the last few moons, since he’d come back from the brink of death, was fading away in front of him. Those five years had been hard on Yuri, but he’d never written Byleth’s name in his book. For Byleth, they’d gone by in a flash, as if they were nothing. To him, all that time they spent together before the war started, those three wonderful moons… that time was not so long ago. These days it was beginning to feel like that conversation they’d had one night after his father died had never happened. Yuri had learned the value of trust, had learned how powerful it could be.

But then Yuri spent five years alone, hoping Byleth would reappear one day.

Finally, he did, and at first, Yuri’s masks stayed up, just like when they had first met. But over time he remembered that Byleth wasn’t here to judge him, wasn’t here to guilt him into doing things differently, and he let his real emotions through again. They had grown so close – closer than they had been before the war started, and certainly closer than Byleth ever had been with another person… and now it felt like that life was slipping through his fingers.

Byleth closed his eyes again, pursing his lips. “I… I just…” he started, sighing. He buried his face in his right hand, running it up through his hair as he tried to figure out how to put his feeling into words. “I didn’t do it with any expectations. I did it because I wanted to. I saw what was about to happen, and I – his axe would have gone right into your back.” Byleth paused, shuddering at the thought of Yuri lifeless on the ground. Having to witness that even once was already hard enough. “I got in the way and ended up with a shoulder wound. I think that’s a lot better.”

Expression still relatively neutral, Yuri looked away. “Even more reason for me to make sure you’re alright. I owe you my life,” he responded, his voice flat. 

“No, no you don’t. You don’t owe me anything. I took the hit because the alternative was-” Byleth started, his voice tense with frustration. He shook his head, unable to give voice to that _alternative_. “If I hadn’t done what I did, do you think we would have having this conversation right now?”

Yuri looked back at Byleth suddenly, almost like he’d been slapped. He glanced down at the floor before answering, “…probably not. Maybe. But probably not.”

“Do you think I would have been okay with that?” Byleth asked, trying to stay calm and keep the hurt out of his voice. 

“…no,” Yuri replied after a pause. His gaze stayed locked to the floor.

“Then…” Byleth sighed again, wishing he were more adept at talking about how he felt. He knew how he felt, and he had no issues with giving voice to his emotions, but sometimes he just didn’t know what words to use, and it was frustrating at times. “Then why do you insist on owing me? Why do you want to treat it like it was some sort of favour for me to take that hit? I know sometimes you feel like… you’re not worthy of people’s kindness… but this is different. This isn’t just a matter of kindness. Why- why would I- let that happen, when I could stop it?”

Yuri’s reply, when it finally came, was so quiet Byleth almost didn’t hear it. “And what if that axe killed you instead of me? What if _you_ had died? What then.” His voice had the barest hint of roughness to it, almost imperceptible.

Byleth froze. “Wha- I-” he tried, but he was so taken aback by Yuri’s words that he could hardly even begin to form a response. “That’s not what happened,” he finally said after a few moments.

“But it could have. And then what would I have done? I’d be back where I was almost half a year ago,” Yuri started, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, his voice like steel. He still wasn’t looking at Byleth. “Except now, now I’ve let you in a lot more, haven’t I? More than before the war started. More than before you disappeared.” 

“Yuri…” Byleth breathed out, stunned. He thought something was going on, but he hadn’t considered this. Yuri was afraid of him dying. Afraid of him leaving again. And that was reasonable, wasn’t it? They were fighting in a war, and though Byleth was used to being able to reverse time to save people, he never really considered what would happen if he just died. He just didn’t want to think about it.

“And if I have to tell myself that I’m just repaying a debt when I come up here, that you took that blow and now I owe you for it,” Yuri began, finally turning to look at Byleth, the mask gone now. The pain in his eyes hurt more than the axe in Byleth’s shoulder had. “It’s only because I don’t want to think too hard about my actual motivations.” He looked away now, still hunched over, leaning against the desk as he stared at the floor.

 _His actual motivations_? What was that supposed to mean? “Yuri… I’m not going to go anywhere. I’m not going to die. I should have died when I got blasted into that canyon, but I didn’t,” Byleth asserted, wishing he could more easily stand, could go over to Yuri and hold him. His heart sank as he wondered how long Yuri was holding all this in.

“I wish I could believe you. I want to. Believe me, I really do. But I can’t,” Yuri replied, closing his eyes. He sounded tired, defeated. Like he’d been fighting with this mammoth of an issue for so long that admitting it now felt like giving in.

For a minute or so they sat in silence as Byleth processed all of this new information. Stringing together a response was a completely separate challenge. Once he finally found the words, he started slowly, as if he were talking to a frightened animal that he might scare away.

“I… understand if you want to step back a bit, and… well…” he started, closing his eyes with a sigh. “I just don’t… If you’re afraid of feeling… vulnerable, and you can’t think too hard about your actual motivations for coming up here and helping me recover, and these things make you want to change the… nature of our relationship, step it back… isn’t that same as if I’d died?”

At first the only reaction Yuri had was to open his eyes and lift his head slightly, as if he wasn’t sure what he’d heard. Slowly, like a flower blooming in the rising sun, Yuri stopped slouching against the desk, and turned to Byleth, his disposition completely opening back up. His eyes were wide and unsure. Byleth watched him swallow nervously before he started to speak. “I… yeah. That makes sense, doesn’t it? You’re still alive here, so if… if I thought it was better for me if we stopped for a while, at least there would be the possibility of going back. But I understand what you mean.” For a moment he glanced back down at the floor, as if considering something, and then looked back up, expression heavy with sorrow. “I was so scared.” Yuri closed his eyes with a sigh, and Byleth wondered if he was still scared. Probably. Byleth certainly couldn’t say he wasn’t, every minute out on the battlefield, wondering who would die next. Wondering during any given battle if that would be the time he ran out of divine pulses. 

He just tried not to think about that.

“Do you… want to come over here?” Byleth asked, trying to reach out to Yuri with his uninjured arm. Yuri looked up again, and after a pause he nodded and stood, moving to the end of the bed and crawling on so he was on Byleth’s uninjured side, against the wall. Byleth wrapped his arm around him as he was settling down. These last few days, wondering what had happened, had been awful, and Byleth was overjoyed to have Yuri next to him again. Comfortable, again.

Yuri was looking at him, and after a moment he said, “For the record, I have been coming up here mostly because I want to take care of you. I can’t deny that a part of me does feel like I owe you for saving my life, but…” He trailed off, glancing away. “I’m uncomfortable admitting just how deeply I feel about you. But I don’t really want you to think that I’m doing this to pay off a debt. So… I suppose it can’t be helped.”

“Yuri… I- you know that- that I care _a lot_ about you too, right?” Byleth asked, wondering if this was Yuri’s difficulties with his emotions or if _he_ hadn’t made his own feelings at least somewhat clear. Byleth wasn’t going to claim to be an expert in relationships anytime soon, but he knew well enough to know he felt a lot of things about Yuri, but he wasn’t going to call it love yet. Maybe one day, when he was sure how deep his feelings ran, but Yuri deserved to have someone who was sure about how they felt, and sure about being able to express it. Byleth wasn’t confident he was that person yet.

Briefly, Yuri looked mildly alarmed, and then his face softened. “Of course I do. You… aren’t the best with your emotions, but neither am I. But you… show it pretty freely. I… don’t think I would be able to trust you the way I do if you didn’t,” he answered, looking carefully up at Byleth. 

Byleth nodded. “Sorry, I just… had a moment, wondering if maybe I was… doing something wrong.”

“You don’t need to apologize. It’s… it’s probably good that we talk like this sometimes, you know. Make sure we’re on the same page…” Yuri explained, his tone reassuring. 

“Yeah… that’s true,” Byleth agreed.

There was a quiet lull where they basked in each other’s affectionate company before Yuri spoke up again. “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

Byleth nodded. “I think I’m good for now. Honestly… all this talking has sort of worn me out,” he responded, glancing over at Yuri’s papers on his desk. “Those important?”

Yuri shrugged. “Sort of? Not urgent,” he answered. “Why?”

“I was thinking about a nap… would you want to nap with me…?” Byleth asked, gently stroking Yuri’s cheek.

Leaning into the touch, Yuri nodded. “Yeah, I’m not really tired but I don’t mind lying here with you.”

Byleth smiled. Together they rearranged the pillows and themselves so they could lay together easily without bothering Byleth’s shoulder. Comfortably lying down again, Byleth let his fatigue sink in, and the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Yuri radiantly smiling up at him; one of those much rarer, much less typical Yuri smiles – the smiling-with-your-eyes kind.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be posting another fic tomorrow that chronologically comes after this one. It is for the Day 4 Prompt, Break, and is set post game.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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